I try not to buy into these post, but OK, here goes. A lot of people saying about lamp/zip cord: well you are certainly free to do what you feel is best for you and your system, and if you want to run .10 cents a foot lamp cord between your several hundred dollar speakers and likewise components, feel free. Or maybe your system is just not resolving enough to hear the difference, or maybe your ears are beyond their years or you have some hearing loss, its understandable.
Or bigger, maybe you don't know what to listen for? When I was in my early audiophile years, my late teens and early 20's, I always swore I could not hear a difference in MOST cables, not all. Then a friend who was older and in the hobby for a long time taught me what to listen for, we did some blind A/B and listened for other details. At first I was listening to see which piano note sounded better, or which bass note sounded deeper, that was it, I didn't know any better. That is one part of it and cables will make a difference in those things, but often the differences are much more subtle. However, when I learned how to listed I heard a whole new world and I heard individual instruments open up with separation between each one and clear focus, I heard a soundstage. For the first time I could hear notes coming right out of a sound hole of an acoustic guitar. The differences I hear on notes was also more natural, less edge, now there was a clean defined note with a black background. Now I could hear the differences between a $500 pair of cables and a $1000 pair of cables. Yes, I agree when you get into that price point of cables, the differences are more subtle and you have to know what to listen for and your ears and system have to be equipped to hear and transmit those subtleties. These differences are things you can't measure or show on paper.
I recently spent $2500 on a bi-wire pair of Purist Audio Venustas Luminist, replacing my 20 year old Purist Audio Musaeus and I am glad I spent the difference, the benefits were worth it for me and what I heard.
Or bigger, maybe you don't know what to listen for? When I was in my early audiophile years, my late teens and early 20's, I always swore I could not hear a difference in MOST cables, not all. Then a friend who was older and in the hobby for a long time taught me what to listen for, we did some blind A/B and listened for other details. At first I was listening to see which piano note sounded better, or which bass note sounded deeper, that was it, I didn't know any better. That is one part of it and cables will make a difference in those things, but often the differences are much more subtle. However, when I learned how to listed I heard a whole new world and I heard individual instruments open up with separation between each one and clear focus, I heard a soundstage. For the first time I could hear notes coming right out of a sound hole of an acoustic guitar. The differences I hear on notes was also more natural, less edge, now there was a clean defined note with a black background. Now I could hear the differences between a $500 pair of cables and a $1000 pair of cables. Yes, I agree when you get into that price point of cables, the differences are more subtle and you have to know what to listen for and your ears and system have to be equipped to hear and transmit those subtleties. These differences are things you can't measure or show on paper.
I recently spent $2500 on a bi-wire pair of Purist Audio Venustas Luminist, replacing my 20 year old Purist Audio Musaeus and I am glad I spent the difference, the benefits were worth it for me and what I heard.